Get that green edge!

This one's for the person who has it all? live flowers and greens are always welcome! Takes a little time and doing but few store-bought gifts may compare. Just make sure your gift goes with a little card explaining how to maintain?

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Neharika Mathur Sinha

October 29, 2009

UPDATED: October 29, 2009 16:37 IST

This one's for the person who has it all? live flowers and greens are always welcome! Takes a little time and doing but few store-bought gifts may compare. Just make sure your gift goes with a little card explaining how to maintain?

Bottle beauty: Fish bowls, vases, even small aquariums you can use clear-glass containers of all shapes and sizes to make a bottle garden. An eco-system is created inside the bottle . the plants grow on their own, requiring watering (just a sprinkling in fact) only once every few months. How does it work? It's covered from the top, and so the water inside evaporates from the soil, and then condenses to slake the plants . this cycle can continue for more than a month. Here's how you create this (get the ?gingredients?h at a nearby nurs ery): Take 1.4 part soil, 2.4 part leaf mould (patti ki khaad), 1.4 part sand, broken bits of earthenware pots, and one handful each of wood ash (to help avoid water retention) and cowdung manure. Keep all this in the sun for 2-3 days or roast them one by one in a kadhai to disinfect.

Choose any glass jar and line the bottom with a one-inch layer of broken earthenware pot bits. Do this gently, to avoid any damage to the glass. Sprinkle with wood ash or sand. Mix up the rest of the ingredients and spread evenly. Create mini hillocks and valleys to add interest. Water to moisten soil . pour it in through a newspaper rolled into a pipe. this way, you control the amount of water that?fs going in. Now arrange the plants on the bed . small-sized plants such as ferns, moneyplant, aluminium plant, lavendra, calthea and asparagus work well. You can also put in pebbles or shells to pretty it up. Use a pair of tweezers, a fork, or chopsticks to set the garden. Cover the mouth of the container with cling film or any polythene to make it airtight (simply tie it up). It should be kept next to a window, where it?fll get indirect sunlight through the day.

You may choose not to cover the bottle, and simply place the plants inside. It looks great, and works for smaller plants (baby lilies, or greens such as ferns and wheatgrass, or even cacti) as well since they?fre easily visible through the glass. Since there?fs no outlet for drainage, you'll have to make similar soil layers as explained above. This arrangement will need to be sprinkled with water once a day; be careful to avoid flooding.

Served up on a trayA tray garden is like a miniature landscape that can be placed anywhere - on your balcony ledge, the entrance to your house, or even as a dcor element inside the living room when you're entertaining friends.

Get the raw materials from a well stocked nursery. The most important being the earthenware tray - it's available in various sizes, usually in round and oval shapes with various compartments, including one for a water body. Match it to the size of the house and the style of the person you intend to gift it to. Make sure that there are holes for drainage. For the soil mix, you'll need two parts soil, onepart cowdung manure, one part leaf mould, a handful of wood ash and approximately 2tsp neem khali (to disinfect) and 2tsp bone meal. Place broken bits of earthen pots on the drainage holes and then add the soil mix (no need to layer here). Choose from plants such as ferns, bamboo, arelia, paperomia and singonium (the small variety), zebrine and calathea and place as you like - use a tweezer to plant the smaller ones, and a small paint brush to clean leaves. Add pebbles, toy bridges and earthenware huts for interest. As a variation, you can also make a "cactus garden"; just reduce the manure content in the soil.

Canned, not potted!Collect colourful cans; make sure the lids are cleanly removed and there are no ragged edges. Make an opening at the bottom of each can for drainage and two smaller ones on the sides, near the top (simply hammer a nail in, and then make the hole bigger with a sharp-tipped screwdriver). Add a mix of one part sand, two parts soil, one part cowdung manure, and a handful of neem khali and 2tsp bone meal and plant whatever blooms you want . try narcissus, pansies or hyacinths. Create three four of these, using similar flowers (Do allow the plants around two weeks to settle in). Then insert some twine in the side openings, tie the cans together and gift the bouquet. Suggest placements in your Instruction Card: Hang from gates, railings on balconies and verandahs and garden fences.

Three greens in oneTake a set of three small plastic bowls or clay kulhars; even coconut halves work? (See picture above) Make holes on the sides with a thin-tipped screwdriver (make it red-hot on a flame first) for the plastic bowls; you'll need an electric hand-drill for the coconut halves and kulhars. Fill up with the soil and manure mix (the same one used for the cans) and plant a selection of small and large greens within. Arrange the "pots" in a row and measure the row. Take two sticks; the length being more than that of the row, and place them on either side of the plants. Insert twine in the openings on the sides of the "pots" and tie the sticks to them as shown. Easy to carry and hand over to your friend. You can tie a Maintenance Manual on to the framework.

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